97 Lumina steering column

My wife told me of a rattle in the steering column of her 97 Lumina. Every time I drive the car, it won’t make the noise. I did notice that it is very hard to shift into drive from park the first few times and then the shifter works pretty well after that. I was wondering if something broke or worked loose inside the column and is binding on the shift linkage. Has anyone had this problem?

Try lifting/moving the steering wheel. The tilt wheel mechanism can loosen up which will cause what you describe. It should have little or no free play unless the tilt release lever is pulled.

The shifter cable gets stiff on these when they get old, the shifter is hard to move when the motor's cold. Eventually it gets to where you about can't move it to save your life when it's cold out.

Mine was getting there last year. I was gonna put a new cable on, but while scoping out how to do it, I noticed the adjuster part midway down the cable housing, you can pull the plastic clip off and pull the cable apart into two pieces, so I shot it with WD-40 in both ends and put it back together...it's been fine since.

I guess the old grease had dried up....had to fiddle with the adjustment breifly afterwards to get the shifter indexed right, but no big deal...

As to the noise, Rich is probably right. I'd take a look at that.

Look for loose joints here (where the naval bronze sleeves have been installed):

http://www.wwdsltd.com/files/YokePivotPinsBushed.jpg

Jeff wrote: Mine was getting there last year. I was gonna put a new cable on, but while scoping out how to do it, I noticed the adjuster part midway down the cable housing, you can pull the plastic clip off and pull the cable apart into two pieces, so I shot it with WD-40 in both ends and put it back together...it's been fine since.

Is this part of the cable under the dash or in the engine compartment?
Thanks Jeff
Blue Bowtie - what part am I looking at here? I don't recognize it.
Thanks for the help. May look at it tomorrow.

Under the hood...the cable comes right over the top of everything on the driver's side, big fat black cable housing. The clipis a wide plastic part that you can just grab and pull up, it pops up one notch to allow adjustment, or can be pulled all the way off so you can shoot both ends of the cable with lube...I guess the WD-40 just worked in there and rehydrated the old cable lube...

That is an upper steering column housing, similar to your's. With the steering wheel and plastic shrouds surrounding the column removed, you will see that piece. They typically wear at the pivot points, and the wear is almost always in the die cast column rather than the harder steel pivot pins. There is an equal chance that the screws attaching the lower column to the jacket tube have worked loose, depending upon the type of column.

If you can detect play in only the vertical plane, the problem may be with the tilt lock rack gears. If there is play in all directions, you will more likely find the tilt joint loose.